Thursday, March 28, 2024

From hawking tea and bread to top regional country manager

Sitah Lang’o’s warm and affable personality is infectious. In just five minutes, a visitor turns from acquaintance to old friend, a gift that has seen her graduate from struggling to make a living in Maringo Estate, in Eastlands, to regional country manager (East Africa) for SWIFT, a global company that offers financial messaging services to financial institutions.

Sitah jokingly calls herself a village girl. She was born and raised in Ugenya, Siaya County, with four siblings, and credits what she is today to her parents — her father, a retired civil servant, and her mother, a farmer.

“I grew up seeing what hard work is,” Sitah observes, recalling her mother being the source of fresh vegetables and milk for institutions and households in the area, produce grown on their farm.

She admired her mother’s independence. “She didn’t need to ask anyone for anything,” she remarks.

She joined boarding school at the tender age of eight; her mother believed she and her siblings would get better schooling away from home, and today, Sitah feels that she would not be who she is had she not gone to boarding school.

In 2001, she graduated from Kisumu Girls High School, and that December, her father helped her find an internship at a five-star hotel in the city.

She was elated because she had always wanted to work in the hospitality industry. After her father’s retirement in 2001, money was not easy to come by, so Sitah had to look for ways to foot her transport and meals, since her mother could only afford to pay for her accommodation in a small room in Maringo Estate, in Eastlands.

Continue reading on Page 2

Connect With Us

320,550FansLike
14,108FollowersFollow
8,436FollowersFollow
1,880SubscribersSubscribe

Latest Stories

Related Stories